They aren’t, but I don’t feel like going into it with you.
I will use a simpler data-point to prove that my initial claim was correct.
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
If everyone went vegan, that would remove the majority of greenhouse gas production. So put simply, it would be the “biggest” thing everyone could do to reduce CO2 emissions.(That is just CO2, there are many other horrible things related to animal agriculture.)
your article makes a claim unsubstatiated by the paper itself. and the paper is almost 2 decades old, and does not, itself, make any claim about the best way for anyone to reduce their GHGe.
On top of that, meat and dairy are only part of agriculture; a big chunk of methane emissions from agriculture come from rice farming.
A huge cut in meat (and dairy) consumption is going to be needed to get to net zero emissions, but it’s not a majority of what is needed. People recommend it strongly in large part because ending meat consumption doesn’t cost people money, so everybody can do it.
This is unfortunately not true. There are several mechanisms through which meat production increases greenhouse gas emissions:
Bacteria in the stomachs of cattle and other ruminants produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. So the more cattle being raised for meat or milk, the more methane in the atmosphere. Reduce the size of the herd, and the concentration drops.
Animals consume energy from the food they eat; not every calorie they eat ends up as meat or milk. In the case of cattle, only about 1/10 ends up in that form. So a lot of land needs to be converted from natural ecosystems to produce food for animals. This conversion causes carbon sequestered in trees and soils to be released into the atmosphere.
That increased area of agricultural land needs fertilizer, and the process for making nitrogen fertilizer involves burning huge amounts of natural gas. This both releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, as well as CH₄ via pipeline leaks.
those are all problems of production. production doesn’t decrease because anybody goes vegan. veganism has been around since the '40s, meat production has only increased since then with a few exceptions that have nothing to do with people being vegan.
Almost nobody has gone vegan during a time period where the population affluent enough to afford regular meat on a regular basis has increased many times over.
If a meaningful chunk of the affluent population went vegan, we’d absolutely see a lot less meat produced. At the individual level, it’s going to make a very modest difference, but that’s how mass changes start.
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
that’s simply not true. GHGe for all of agriculture come out to about 20% of total GHGe.
your first link doesn’t speak to your claim at all. your second link depends on the same author.
Here’s a link to the research article itself with all the data from which they drew their conclusion: https://josephpoore.com/Science 360 6392 987 - Accepted Manuscript.pdf
they are misusing the LCA data. since it was gathered through disparate methodologies, it can’t be combined as they have done.
edit: regardless, this paper doesn’t support the claim you made.
They aren’t, but I don’t feel like going into it with you. I will use a simpler data-point to prove that my initial claim was correct.
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. If everyone went vegan, that would remove the majority of greenhouse gas production. So put simply, it would be the “biggest” thing everyone could do to reduce CO2 emissions.(That is just CO2, there are many other horrible things related to animal agriculture.)
Sources: Article: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/study-claims-meat-creates-half-of-all-greenhouse-gases-1812909.html
The paper: https://www.fao.org/4/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
your article makes a claim unsubstatiated by the paper itself. and the paper is almost 2 decades old, and does not, itself, make any claim about the best way for anyone to reduce their GHGe.
they are. their reference papers state this explicitly
This is just false. The biggest source has long been fossil fuel burning, not agriculture, and that remains true even when you include fossil fuel use by agriculture.
On top of that, meat and dairy are only part of agriculture; a big chunk of methane emissions from agriculture come from rice farming.
A huge cut in meat (and dairy) consumption is going to be needed to get to net zero emissions, but it’s not a majority of what is needed. People recommend it strongly in large part because ending meat consumption doesn’t cost people money, so everybody can do it.
Please don’t repeat false claims here.
there is no causal mechanism by which anyone going vegan reduces any ghg production
This is unfortunately not true. There are several mechanisms through which meat production increases greenhouse gas emissions:
Both of you need to cool it here.
those are all problems of production. production doesn’t decrease because anybody goes vegan. veganism has been around since the '40s, meat production has only increased since then with a few exceptions that have nothing to do with people being vegan.
Almost nobody has gone vegan during a time period where the population affluent enough to afford regular meat on a regular basis has increased many times over.
If a meaningful chunk of the affluent population went vegan, we’d absolutely see a lot less meat produced. At the individual level, it’s going to make a very modest difference, but that’s how mass changes start.
there’s no reason to believe it makes any difference at all.
Oh Okay, you’re just out of your mind. Thanks for confirming that so I don’t have to waste my time anymore.
that’s simply not true. GHGe for all of agriculture come out to about 20% of total GHGe.